Laptop lock

I have one of those laptop locks that fit into the docking station and prevent the laptop from being undocked.
It has 4 revolving digits and one combination that works. Yeah right as if I'm going to tell you that its "hunter2".

What I wanted to know was how much time will it take to try each and every combination.
There are a total of 10000 combinations. To go from 0000 to 0040 took me 3 minutes - including initial reset to 0000.
That means 750 minutes for the whole range = 12 hours in the worst case using nothing but brute force.

This basically means that your laptop can be stolen over the weekend, even if it is locked.
It also means that any thief who has repeated access to your lock is going to break it within a maximum two nights.

So much for security.

Street signal cheeky hack

I am always in search of an optimized route home. Just as I get out of the office parking lot, whether I turn right or left is dependent on the signal to my right. In the case where I turn left, I go through the another parking lot - this eliminates 2 signals, but introduces a third just as I exit the other parking lot.

During rush hour, this third one is a large risk: It always schedules the cross traffic a lot more time than me.

There are two ways to trick the signal scheduler:
1. Go up to the line, reverse back a few inches. Works sometimes...
2. Put the car into park, hop out, press the walk button for pedestrians crossing the cross traffic road. This one works for sure! However, if you time your exit from your car badly, the guys behind you will be pissed when the signal goes green and you're outside the car.

Obvious disclaimer: Do this at your own risk - I am not responsible for anything you do.